Well then, here we are. Day two of the Spring 2022 Quarterly Review brings a few records that I really, really like, personally, and I hope that you listen and feel similar. What you’ll find throughout is a pretty wide swath of styles, but these are the days of expanded-definition heavy, so let’s not squabble about this or that. Still a lot of week to go, folks. Gotta keep it friendly.

Deep breath in, and…

Quarterly Review #11-20:

Arð, Take Up My Bones

Hard to know at what point Winterfylleth‘s Mark Deeks decided to send his historically-minded solo-project Arð to Prophecy Productions for release consideration, but damned if the six-song Take Up My Bones doesn’t feel quintessential. Graceful lines of piano and strings give way to massively-constructed lumbering funeralia, vocals adding to the atmosphere overall as the story of St. Cuthbert’s bones is recounted through song, in mood perhaps more than folk balladeering. Whatever your familiarity with that narrative or willingness to engage it, Deeks‘ arrangements are lush and wondrously patient, the sound of “Boughs of Trees” at the outset of side B building smoothly toward its deathly sprawl but unrelentingly melodic. The longer “Raise Then the Incorrupt Body” and “Only Three Shall Know” come across as more directly dramatic with their chants and so on, but Arð‘s beauty-through-darkness melancholy is the center around which the album is built and the end result is suitably consuming. While not incomplete by any means, I find myself wondering when it’s over what other stories Deeks may have to tell.

Arð on Facebook

Prophecy Productions website

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Seremonia, Neonlusifer

Oh, Seremonia. How I missed you. These long six years after Pahuuden Äänet (review here), the Finnish troupe return to rescue their cult listenership from any and all mundane realities, psych and garage-fuzz potent enough to come with a warning label (which so far as I know it doesn’t) on “Neonlusifer” and the prior opener “Väärä valinta” with the all-the-way-out flute-laced swirl of “Raskatta vettä,” and if you don’t know what to make of all those vowel sounds, good luck with the cosmic rock of “Kaivon pohjalla” and “Unohduksen kidassa,” on which vocalist Noora Federley relinquishes the lead spot to new recruit Teemu Markkula (also Death Hawks), who also adds guitar, synth, organ and flute alongside the guitar/synth/vocals of Ville Pirinen, the drums/guitar/flute/vocals of Erno Taipale and bass/synth/vocals of Ilkka Vekka. This is a band who reside — permanently, it seems — on a wavelength of their own, and Neonlusifer is more than welcome after their time out of time. May it herald more glorious oddness to come from the noisy mist that ends “Maailmanlopun aamuna” and the album as a whole.

Seremonia on Facebook

Svart Records website

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The Quill, Live, New, Borrowed, Blue

Swedish heavy rockers The Quill mark 30 years of existence in 2022 (actually they go back further), and while Live, New, Borrowed, Blue isn’t quite an anniversary release, it does collect material from a pretty broad span of years. Live? “Keep it Together” and an especially engaging take on “Hole in My Head” that closes. New? The extended version of “Keep on Moving” from 2021’s Earthrise (review here), “Burning Tree” and “Children of the Sun.” Borrowed? Iron Maiden‘s “Where Eagles Dare,” November‘s “Mount Everest,” Aerosmith‘s “S.O.S.” and Captain Beyond‘s “Frozen Over.” Blue? Certainly “Burning Tree,” and all of it, if you’re talking about bluesy riffs, which, if you’re talking about The Quill, you are. In the narrative of Sverige heavy rock, they remain undersung, and this compilation, in addition to being a handy-dandy fan-piece coming off their last record en route to the inevitable next one, is further evidence to support that claim. Either you know or you don’t. Three decades on, The Quill are gonna be The Quill either way.

The Quill on Facebook

Metalville Records website

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Dark Worship, Flesh of a Saint

Though it’s just 20 minutes long, the six-song debut from Ohio’s Dark Worship offers dark industrial heft and a grim psychedelic otherworldliness in more than enough measure to constitute a full-length. At the center of the storm — though not the eye of it, because it’s quiet there — is J. Meyers, also of Axioma, who conjures the spaces of “Culling Song” and “We’ve Always Been Here” as a bed for a selection of guest vocalists, including Nathan Opposition of Ancient VVisdom/Vessel of Light, Axioma‘s Aaron Dallison, and Joe Reed (To Dust, Exorcisme). No matter who’s fronting a given track — Reed gets the lion’s share, Dallison the title-track and Opposition the penultimate “Destroy Forever (Death of Ra)” — the vibe is biting and dark in kind, with Meyers providing backing vocals, guitar, and of course the software-born electronic beats and melodies that are the core of the project. Maybe hindsight will make this nascent-feeling, but in terms of world construction, Flesh of a Saint is punishing in its immersion, right up to the howling feedback and ambience of “Well of Light” at the finish. Conceptually destructive.

Dark Worship on Facebook

Tartarus Records store

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More Experience, Electric Laboratory of High Space Experience

Nature sounds feature throughout More Experience‘s 2021 third album, Electric Laboratory of High Space Experience, with birdsong and other naturalist atmospheres in opener “The Twilight,” “Beezlebufo,” closer “At the Gates of Dawn,” and so on. Interspersed between them is the Polish troupe’s ’60s-worship psych. Drawing on sonic references from the earliest space rock and post-garage psychedelics — think Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, King Crimson’s “Epitaph” is almost remade here as the penultimate title-track — band founder Piotr Dudzikowski (credited with guitars, organs, synthesizers, backing vocals, harmonium, tambura, and cobuz) gets by with a little help from his friends, which means in part that the vocals of extended early highlight “The Dream” are pulled back for a grain-of-salt spoken word on “The Trip” and the later “Fairy Tale.” The synthy “The Mind” runs over nine minutes and between that, “The Dream” and the title-track (9:56), I feel like I’m digging the longer-form, more dug-in songs, but I’m not going to take away from the ambient and more experimental stuff either, since that’s how this music was invented in the first place.

More Experience on Facebook

More Experience on Bandcamp

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Jawless, Warrizer

Young Indonesian riffers Jawless get right to the heart of heavy on their debut album, Warrizer, with a raw take on doom rock that’s dead-on heavy and classic in its mindset. There’s nothing fancy happening here other than some flourish of semi-psych guitar, but the self-produced four-piece from Bandung kill it with a reverence of course indebted to but not beholden to Sabbathian blues licks, and their swing on “Deceptive Events” alone is enough proof-of-concept for me. I’m on board. It’s not about progressive this or that. It’s not about trying to find a genre niche no one’s thought of yet. This is players in a room rocking the fuck out. And they might have a bleak point of view in cuts like “War is Come,” and one does not have to look too far to get the reference in “The Throne of Tramp,” but that sense of judgment is part and parcel to originalist doom. At 50 minutes, it’s long for an LP, but as “Restrained” pays off the earlier psychedelic hints, “Metaphorical Speech” boogie-jams and “G.O.D.” rears back with each measure to spit its next line, I wouldn’t lose any of it.

Jawless on Facebook

Jawless on Bandcamp

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The Heavy Co., Shelter

Adding a guest guitar solo from Earthless‘ Isaiah Mitchell wasn’t going to hurt the cause of Indianapolis duo The Heavy Co., and sure enough it doesn’t. Issued digitally in 2020 and premiered here, “Shelter” runs a quick three minutes of psych-blues rock perfectly suited to the 7″ treatment Rock Freaks Records gives it and the earlier digi-single “Phoenix” (posted here), which had been the group’s first offering after a six-year break. “Phoenix,” which is mellower and more molten in its tempo throughout its six minutes, might be the better song of the two, but the twang in “Shelter” pairs well with that bluesy riff from guitarist/vocalist Ian Daniel, and Jeff Kaleth holds it down on drums. More to come? Maybe. There’s interesting ground here to explore in this next phase of The Heavy Co.‘s tenure.

The Heavy Co. on Facebook

Rock Freaks Records store

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Sound of Smoke, Tales

All that “Witch Boogie” is missing is John Lee Hooker going “boom boom boom” over that riff, and even when opener “Strange Fruit” or “Dreamin'” is indebted to the Rolling Stones, it’s the bluesier side of their sound. No problem there, but Freiburg, Germany, four-piece Sound of Smoke bring a swagger and atmosphere to “Soft Soaper” that almost ’70s-style Scorpions in its beginning before the shuffling verse starts, tambourine and all, and there’s plenty of pastoral psych in “Indian Summer” and 10-minute “Human Salvation,” the more weighted surges of which feel almost metallic in their root — like someone between vocalist/keyboardist Isabelle Bapté, guitarist Jens Stöver, bassist Florian Kiefer and drummer Johannes Braunstein once played in a harder-focused project. Still, as their debut LP after just a 2017 EP, the seven-song/43-minute Tales shows a looser rumble in “Devil’s Voice” behind Bapté, and there’s a persona and perspective taking shape in the songs. It’ll be hard work for them to stand out, but given what I hear in these tracks, both their psych edge and that sharper underpinning will be assets in their favor along with the sense of performance they bring.

Sound of Smoke on Facebook

Tonzonen Records website

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Red Mesa, Forest Cathedral

Coming off their 2020 full-length, The Path to the Deathless (review here), Albuquerque-based trio Red Mesa — guitarist/vocalist Brad Frye, bassist/vocalist Alex Cantwell, who alternates here with Frye, and drummer/backing vocalist Roman Barham, who may or may not also join in on the song’s willfully lumbering midsection — take a stated turn toward doom with the 5:50 Forest Cathedral single. The grittier groove suits them, and the increasing sharing of vocals (which includes backing), makes them a more complex act overall, but there’s not necessarily anything in “Forest Cathedral” to make one think it’s some radical shift in another direction, which there was enough of on The Path to the Deathless to warrant a guest appearance from Dave Sherman of Earthride. Still, they continue to do it well, and honing in on this particular sound, whether something they do periodically to change it up, never touch again after this, or see as a new way to go all-in, I’m content to follow along and see where it goes.

Red Mesa on Facebook

Desert Records BigCartel store

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Margarita Witch Cult, Witchfinder

In keeping with the tradition of over-the-top weed-doom band names, Margarita Witch Cult crawl forth from the birthplace of sonic weight, Birmingham, UK, with their debut two-songer cassingle-looking CD/DL Witchfinder. That’s not the only tradition they’re keeping. See also the classic riffer doom they capture in their practice space on the not-tape and the resulting rawness of “The Witchfinder Comes” and “Aradia,” bot nodders preaching Iommic truths. There’s a bit more scorch in the solo on “Aradia,” but that could honestly mean the microphone moved, and either way, they also keep the tradition of many such UK acts with goofball monikers in actually being pretty right on. Of course, they’re in one of the most crowded heavy undergrounds anywhere in the world, but there’s a lot to be said for taking doom rock and stripping it bare as they do on these tracks, the very least of which is that it would probably work really well on tape. If I was at the gig and I saw it on the merch table, I’d snag and look forward to more. I’ll do the same with the Bandcamp.

Margarita Witch Cult on Facebook

Margarita Witch Cult on Bandcamp

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It was just a couple months ago that I was last heaping retrospective praise on Iota‘s Tales full-length, which was originally released by Small Stone Records in 2008. Needless to say, then, that when the label came around and asked if I had anything to say about a vinyl reissue in the works, I mashed my forehead into my keyboard until a bunch of nonsensical fanboyism could be deciphered by a trained team of baboons, syllable by syllable. Something like that. It may have been orangutans.

The important factor, more even than the fact that this is a “Thing I Wrote” post, which are always a little jolt to my fragile-manchild ego, is that said LP edition of Tales will be out on March 15. In my head, this will play out to massive fanfare and the discovery of a kickass band with untold potential being discovered by a new generation of fans, leading to a reunion, a vital new album and a tour on — why not? — a comfortable bus, maybe shared with Monster Magnet or someone like that. Sounds good? Sounds good to me.

Maybe that’s how it goes. Maybe if you tell two friends and they tell two friends and they tell two friends we’ll all invent the internet. I don’t know. But it’s been 11 years and Tales is still due more acknowledgement than it’s gotten.

Here’s the bio I wrote as circled back through the PR wire with the release info:

IOTA: Small Stone Recordings To Release Tales Full-Length From Cult Stoner Metal Collective On Limited-Edition Vinyl This March; Preorders Available

When IOTA’s Tales was first released more than a decade ago, it immediately heralded a change in the scope of heavy rock ‘n’ roll. From the hard punch of its opening duo “New Mantis” and “We Are The Yithians,” it departed into three extended cuts that drew together already-classic elements of weighted riffs with a doors-thrown-open sense of space and jammed into scorched-solo psychedelic oblivion. With Joey Toscano, who’d go on to form Dwellers, on guitar and vocals, the suitably wizardly Oz on bass, and recording engineer Andy Patterson, who soon enough would join SubRosa, IOTA raised a monolith of singular intent and showed throughout Tales a potential that was entirely their own.

The Salt Lake City trio had been around for over five years by then, having formed in 2002 and released two demos before the album as they earned local praise and found themselves supporting the likes of Brant Bjork, High On Fire, Black Cobra, Eternal Elysium, The Sword, and others. And that’s all well and good, but it would be Tales that defined them, whether it was “The Sleeping Heathen” started off at a sprint on its ten-minute run, “Opiate Blues” sure enough finding room for some harp alongside its dirt-covered riffs and foresight-laden heavy blues pulsations, or the massive sprawl of the twenty-two-minute “Dimensional Orbiter” that dream-jammed its way toward the outer reaches of cosmic sensation. Tantric, broad, and a gorgeous showcase of a dynamic ready to storm the earth, it helped earn Iota a cult following that persists over ten years later.

And along with anyone else who might be fortunate to stumble upon it, that cult, quite frankly, deserves to have Tales on vinyl. This is the first official LP release of the album, so call it a reissue or don’t. It doesn’t matter. Music this good exists out of time, and whether IOTA’s Tales is new to a listener or a well-kept secret regarded as a classic unto itself, it still sounds as far-reaching as it did when the band unfurled it the first time around. It wasn’t to be missed then. It’s not to be missed now [words by JJ Koczan].

Small Stone Recordings will release IOTA’s Tales full-length on vinyl for the first time ever on March 15th. Limited to 500 units in a clear with black swirl color combination, Tales was remastered for vinyl by Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio in Ann Arbor, Michican with the original running order of the album slightly altered to fit on the LP format.

For preorders and to stream Tales in its entirety go to THIS LOCATION.

Tales Track Listing:
Side A:
1. New Mantis
2. The Sleeping Heathen
3. Opiate Blues
Side B:
4. Dimensional Orbiter
5. We Are The Yithians

IOTA is:
Joey Toscano – guitars, vocals
Oz – bass
Andy Patterson – drums

http://www.smallstone.com
http://www.facebook.com/smallstonerecords
http://www.smallstone.bandcamp.com

Iota, Tales (2008/2019)

What a record. I’ve mentioned Iota here and there over the years, mostly when talking about other bands, but it’s now been 10 years since the Salt Lake City-based trio released their debut and apparent swansong, Tales, on Small Stone, and it seems high time the album got a revisit. In hindsight, it was a collection ahead of the curve in its blend of straightforward heavy rock riffing and more open-feeling jams, and even when it came out, it was clear the band were onto something special. I was still working print mags at the time and I remember calling it “like Kyuss in space,” and I stand by that to some degree. Under the mountain-filled skies of Utah, Iota harnessed a style that was as comfortable in the high-rolling lead guitar strut deep into the seventh minute of “The Sleeping Heathen”‘s total 10 as it was tearing through the opening duo of “New Mantis” and “We are the Yithians,” neither of which was half as long. Those two tracks, however brief, were utterly crucial to the overall impression made by guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano, bassist Oz Yosri and drummer/engineer Andy Patterson in what followed.

To wit, with “New Mantis” (4:40) and “We are the Yithians” (3:37) at the outset, Tales subsequently launched into three cuts that would comprise roughly 84 percent of its runtime. “The Sleeping Heathen” (10:42), the sprawling “Dimensional Orbiter” (22:56) and closer “Opiate Blues” (8:14) shot outward from where Tales began, but the context of the two opening tracks gave a straightforward edge to even the most dug-in jams of “Dimensional Orbiter,” which as it hit the five-minute mark, pivoted from its hook and the gritty vocal delivery of Toscano into a consuming instrumental rush that continued until after 19 minutes in, when a slowdown brought the vocals back atop masterful crashing and more wah-drenched lead work. “Dimensional Orbiter” was and remains a gorgeous demonstration of the potential in Iota‘s sound, but the basic elements from which it was crafted are right there in “New Mantis” and “We are the Yithians.” From the furious chug and snare punishment that started the former to the tension of its verses and the takeoff into a solo before the first half was done, to the hook that emerged through the barrage of high-desert tonality and ethereal who-the-hell-knows-what-they’re-talking-about lyrics, and into the semi-metallized slower-thrash riffing of “We are the Yithians,” catchy, quick, efficient as it was, the sense of Iota careening from one movement to the next was palpable even before “The Sleeping Heathen” took hold.

And once it did, it was the beginning point of an entirely different stage of the album. I’d call it a transition point, but it really wasn’t. While “The Sleeping Heathen” picked up at a sprint from “We are the Yithians” and would turn fluidly into “Dimensional Orbiter” on the other end, its place on the record was hardly just about making the shift from one side of the band’s personality to the other. That’s part of what made Tales so special. There was of course a flow between — and plenty within — its tracks, but a huge part of the reason it all worked so well was simply that Toscano, Yosri and Patterson had the confidence to pull it off. Toscano was a grounding presence as a frontman, and the importance of his leading the band through the return to structure in the final minutes of “Dimensional Orbiter” isn’t to be understated for the work it did in establishing Iota‘s songwriting as central. Yeah, they jammed way, way, way out, but they didn’t let the track end without bringing it back either. That was the job of “Opiate Blues,” with its harmonica-laced wash of fuzz and all-gone-not-coming-back vibe. But all the more, then, what “Dimensional Orbiter” did was to show that Iota were conscious of what they were doing in the material. It might sound like they were getting lost in the vastness of their own making, and maybe they were for a while, but they weren’t about to actually stay lost. I’ll happily maintain that Iota‘s Tales was one of 2008’s most exciting albums, and if it showed up now, a decade later, I’d still be dying to hear what the band did next.

A lot’s changed in 10 years, of course, but you take my meaning. Consider the vinyl revival. Tales, as the runtimes and track placements were on the original disc, wouldn’t work on vinyl. You’d probably have to drop off “Opiate Blues” and lose that harmonica-jam finish to close with “Dimensional Orbiter” as a standalone cut on side B. Side A would work with “New Mantis,” “We are the Yithians” and “The Sleeping Heathen” as they are, but the linear aspect of the record would be gone and it would be a marked change in the overall affect. Maybe it would be cool, but I’m not sure sacrificing the closer to fit on a 12″ would be a fair enough trade. But 2008 was a different time. It was a moment of transition in the social media landscape, but even more than that, consider that Texas’ Wo Fat, who’d made their debut in 2006 with The Gathering Dark, would release Psychedelonaut the next year and embark on a similar course of blending straightforward rock with jammier fare. Their take was bluesier, and they certainly went on to do it more than once, but it stands as another example of how new the idea was at that point. Iota were right on the cusp of that movement waiting to happen.

Then nothing happened. They played SXSW a couple times and would talk about new material for a while, but by the second half of 2009, Toscano was beginning to establish his new outfit, Dwellers, and they’d go on to release two records also through Small Stone to-date, while Patterson would take hold of the drums in SubRosa and continue to build his reputation as a producer. Careers took different paths, and gradually Iota became a footnote and a case of what-coulda-been-style potential unrealized. I heard as recently as last year they had some new jams, but nothing has come to the surface as yet, and in the meantime, everyone seems plenty busy otherwise. SubRosa‘s For This We Fought the Battle of Ages (review here) was the best album of 2016, and Dwellers, whose 2014 outing, Pagan Fruit (review here), continues to get periodic revisits, have reportedly started hammering out material for a third LP, to which one looks forward. Yosri was playing with Bird Eater alongside members of the crushing Gaza, but they broke up in 2014. Iota had early demos with different personnel in the rhythm section, but Tales stands alone as the document of what they accomplished during their time. And 10 years after the fact, it still kicks unreasonable amounts of ass.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

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We were getting ready to leave Connecticut the other day — prepping for the by-now-so-familiar-The-Pecan-doesn’t-even-really-mind-it-anymore trip south to New Jersey for a final week here before the semester starts and we have to go back to Massachusetts to hunker down for the winter ahead. I was packing the car. I had a laundry basket full of clean clothes coming south, and the baby didn’t want to be put down. He’s got three teeth, working on numbers four and five already, and has been hair-trigger pretty much daily for the last three weeks running. Brutal. I said, “You wanna go for a ride in the laundry basket?” and he gave me a look like, “The fuck kinda question is that chief OF COURSE I wanna go for a ride in the laundry basket,” so I loaded him in, he held onto the sides and I marched out to put the basket in the car. Fine.

I think it must have been when I pulled the basket up onto the back bumper so I could open the hatch on The Patient Mrs.’ car that my back went out. Brutally out. This was Wednesday early on and it’s Friday morning as I write this and I’m still considerably uncomfortable. I’ve spent the last two days with heating pads and ibuprofen and I’m better than I was by Wednesday evening when we got here and I couldn’t really move, but very clearly something was pulled. Something necessary for basic functions. It has sucked, and it continues to suck. Yesterday I could pick the baby up, but couldn’t really hold him long. Just to kind of put him from one place to the other. No way to live.

My father always had chronic back pain. My sister as well, for years. Real genetic lottery winner, this one.

So that’s kind of peppered my last couple days, and by “peppered” I mean “been excruciating and frustrating.” But so it goes. In addition, I’ve been up in the middle of the night doing Obelisk stuff so that I can be available during the day to watch the baby so The Patient Mrs. can work. Working the overnights. “Four-shift crew rotation, Riker. Get it done.” I don’t actually mind that. I can relax and not be as rushed to get things done, but it does pretty much necessitate a nap later on. And every now and then I cry a bit.

–Wow. So I just went fucking apeshit and typed out a whole miserable screed about depression and pills and being a wreck. I deleted it, it’s gone, but it was there. It sucks that I’m not really comfortable enough to post that kind of thing here anymore. I used to feel like I could say anything at any time. Now, it’s setting myself up for bullshit.

Bummer.

Let’s do the notes instead. That’ll be productive. Did you listen to that Moab track today? That record smokes, so I hope so. Here’s what’s up for next week as of now:

Mon.: Clutch review; The White Swan track premiere.
Tue.: Fvzz Popvli track premiere/review; news catchup.
Wed.: Constant Lovers track premiere.
Thu.: Juicer track premiere.
Fri.: Ramprasad EP full stream.

Busy busy, as ever. Probably Monday we’ll head back north to Connecticut and then follow-up with a return to Massachusetts thereafter. The Patient Mrs. has to go be brilliant as she will at a conference in Boston next weekend, so I’m on baby duty for the duration there, which is fine. I should be able to move by then.

Which reminds me: ibuprofen.

I’m gonna finish downing this coffee, fire off an email or two and go back to bed hopefully for 90 minutes or so until The Pecan wakes up. If you need me this weekend, I’m on the social medias and checking in as much as I can getting ready for next week. That Clutch review is going to be a fun one to put together.

Alright. Great and safe weekend, please. And please too, forum and radio:

The Obelisk Forum

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